How Narcissist Gets You To Take On Their Character Traits

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about how a narcissist gets you to take on the negative characteristics that they can't accept about themselves.

So a narcissist lives in a fantasy world.

In the world of a narcissist,

He or she is grandiose,

He or she is perfect.

Everyone else is less than.

They're going to micromanage you if you are in their life.

They're going to look for things about you that they can ridicule,

That they can pick apart,

That they can nitpick,

And basically induce the sense that you need them,

They're superior to you,

And you're inept.

That's really the goal.

The goal is to get you to even take on and to receive the qualities within themselves that they can't tolerate or they can't consciously integrate.

And that's the whole purpose of what is known as projective identification.

So when it comes to projection,

You can project something about yourself,

This unwanted or unconscious character flaw about yourself,

Or this aspect of your personality that you're just not pleased with.

There's something about you that you don't like and you don't know how to resolve it.

Maybe you eat too fast.

Maybe you interrupt people when they're talking.

And you haven't mastered these things yet.

But when you see someone else that you feel might have these character flaws that you have,

That you dislike,

You can project these character flaws onto the other person.

You might even say to yourself,

Like,

Wow,

This person is so rude.

This person is so selfish.

No one likes this person because she's constantly sucking up all the air in the room.

But these might be things that you worry about yourself.

These might be negative emotions or perspectives that you have about yourself.

It's a very natural ego defense mechanism that lots of us have used throughout our life.

And as we stay on the emotional healing path,

The spiritual awakening path,

More and more we're able to resolve these ideas about the self and heal,

Move up the mature level,

And expand our emotional intelligence.

And we recognize when we're projecting and we pull ourselves back and we ask for forgiveness in our mind or whatever.

We just resolve it and we stop projecting.

When you are a malignant narcissist,

This is not something that you can do because you are unaware that you're doing it.

And the construct in your head really is fantasy based.

You are the one that everyone should be looking up to.

You are the absolute authority.

No one is as beautiful as you are.

No one is as intelligent as you are.

No one is even as empathetic as you are.

No one is as spiritual as you are.

No one is as godly as you are.

In the mind of a narcissist,

You are all knowing,

Right?

Or they are all knowing,

Right?

So in the mind of a narcissist,

They are superior on all levels,

Right?

And they rely on a few,

Many coping skills to keep the facade going and to keep the mask intact.

They might go into denial and deny that there is a problem.

If you ever try to speak to a narcissist about a particular problem that you think that they are bringing to the table,

They'll just go right into denying that there's a problem.

They deny that they are a problem.

And so you never get from point A to point B.

You can't meet this person halfway because they rely on denial.

Like nope,

It doesn't exist.

I'm not talking about it,

Right?

Another thing that a narcissist might do is intellectualize a problem,

Think about a problem,

Talk around you because this is the way they get to avoid feeling what's really going on and accepting responsibility for what you might be saying.

Another thing that they do is they use projection.

When someone uses projection,

They're assigning their negative character flaws onto you.

So they are basically hanging their hat,

Their character flaws on another person.

When it comes to projective identification,

It gets a little woo woo because this is when the target of the projection identification actually believes what the narcissist is saying.

So for instance,

Let's say you have a narcissistic mother who says to her daughter,

You are so selfish,

You are so self-absorbed,

You have no friends,

You will never make anything of yourself,

You're unintelligent.

I don't know why anyone spends any time getting to know you whatsoever.

So the mother is projecting the negative emotions about herself or experiences of self that are unconscious,

That are uncomfortable,

And she just hasn't been able to integrate.

And so she projects them onto her daughter.

And because the daughter has been born to a narcissistic mom,

She has no self-esteem.

She has no ability to set a boundary.

And she also loves this person.

And oftentimes the child of a narcissist will take on these qualities and believe that she is something that she is not.

And then she may even act as if she is what her mother has projected.

When you are a target of projective identification and you come from,

Let's say a dysfunctional home where you weren't permitted to have a self,

Right?

Codependency is a loss of selfhood.

And when we are codependent,

We are unable to set boundaries.

We are afraid of upsetting people.

And at the same time,

We are afraid of negative outcomes.

And so we are seeking approval.

And if we don't win approval,

We fear a negative outcome.

And so if you have a narcissistic mom,

You might get stuck on this terrible ride of seeking her approval,

Never being able to gain her approval,

And then experiencing a negative outcome or you have this negative experience.

So you're living like a hamster on a wheel trying to get your needs met.

And guess what?

They never get met.

What happens?

You sink further and further and further down the emotional scale.

You lose your identity.

Your mother has projected all of her unresolved character flaws or negative emotions about self.

She was never able to integrate them,

Process them.

And now she vomits her feelings of self,

Her unresolved feelings of self onto you.

And because of a lack of boundaries,

Low self-esteem,

Because of your love for your mother,

Because you want to gain her approval and you fear a negative experience,

You take on these character flaws and you actually act as if you believe that what your mother is saying.

And so I have a short story to tell.

Hopefully it'll be a short story,

But my mom and I never got along.

As a child,

I assumed that was my fault.

As I stayed on the recovery path and I learned about what it meant to be the adult child of an alcoholic,

What I learned was that my mother had very few healthy coping skills and had suffered greatly at the hands of her mother who was a severe alcoholic and her dad who was also an alcoholic.

So there was domestic violence in my mother's background and my mother very much lived in denial of just how bad her family was.

And so if you're in denial of gangrene,

You'll probably go into die of sepsis.

It's being in denial of what happened to you as a child that makes you emotionally sick.

That is what makes you spiritually sick.

This is what creates all these energy blocks in our system.

This is what creates lots of our stress-related diseases.

So my mom was in denial of just how unhealthy her childhood home was.

What happens as a result of that is my mother felt unloved,

Unnurtured,

And she was.

She was unable to attach in a healthy way to both her parents.

This is a fact.

When she got married to my dad,

She had me at 19 years old.

She was not equipped to take care of me.

And I believe that she very much struggled with the needs of an infant,

Almost resented the fact that this young,

Innocent creature needed her in a way that she was unable to need her mother.

At least that's what I think happened.

And over the years,

I was called terrible names by my mom.

She would say,

You're a bad girl.

You're a piggy girl.

You're selfish.

You're a drama queen.

No one likes you.

You're never going to have any friends.

You're a hermit.

And so on and so on and so on.

Oh,

She also called me a liar.

The B word.

This went on.

Every once in a while,

I would hear my mom justify it and say things like,

You and I just don't get along.

I think I was seven the first time I heard my mother say,

You and I have a personality conflict.

I would hear her,

I would listen and hear her talking to her friends during the summer nights when I had the bedroom window open.

We never had air conditioning as kids.

And I would hear my mom talk to her friends,

Her neighbors about this idea that she and I had this personality conflict.

And I took it on,

Right?

I felt like I was bad.

I was unlovable.

I was unlikable and no one would ever love me.

And I walked through life feeling this way.

It was very difficult for me to make friends in school.

When I was about seven,

My mother heard from my teacher and said,

I think there's a problem with Lisa and I think you should really take her into therapy.

I didn't hear about this until I was much,

Much older.

And my mother shared it as if to justify,

There really was something wrong with me.

There was no connection to,

Maybe it wasn't my daughter.

Maybe it was what was happening to my daughter.

Maybe it was the way I was relating to my daughter.

And so I took this on.

I am bad.

I have no friends.

I am unworthy.

I am unlovable.

I took it on.

And when I went to school,

I didn't make friends.

I very much stayed in the corner.

I very much felt bad.

Well into grammar school and it even started to happen in the beginning of high school.

And thank God I met a young girl who was still one of my best friends who really pulled me out of this and gave me an opportunity to create friendships.

So I'm really proud of the fact and happy that I was able to break my mother's concept of me.

And as a teenager,

She definitely struggled with me breaking free.

She definitely struggled with me having a boyfriend,

Me having friends and staying out of the house.

Her verbal abuse at times was absolutely unbearable.

And she tried to micromanage all of my time.

Where are you?

What are you doing?

When are you coming home?

And when I did come home,

She ignored me.

It was like she resented that I had a life outside the home.

And so throughout my life,

I have felt that I have had to break free of those voices that were created so early on in my childhood by my mother who was also wounded by her mother.

And I think that if my mother had lived,

She actually died a few years ago on my birthday,

I think if my mother had lived,

I think we would have been able to work through some of this stuff.

At least maybe that's what I want to believe.

But I really do think that if she knew what she was doing,

I think there would have been an opportunity for true healing with she and I.

But I think it's really important that people recognize the power of projective identification because it is so easy for us,

For those of us who've grown up in dysfunctional homes,

Those of us who had alcoholic parents that never got sober,

Who denied there was a problem,

Those of us who grew up in homes where there was some other type of addiction,

Those of us who grew up with childhood emotional neglect,

Those of us who grew up with verbal abuse,

Those of us who grew up with narcissistic parents,

Those of us who grew up with emotionally immature parents who were in competition with us,

Right?

Those of us who were parentified,

Those of us who had helicopter parents,

Those of us who had parents who loved us conditionally,

Who taught us that we were supposed to do what they wanted us to do,

That we weren't our own 3D autonomous human being.

We owed our parents before we were even born.

It was our job to make them feel important.

It was our job to give them an identity or give them a purpose.

This happens in highly codependent mother-daughter,

Mother-son,

Father-son,

Father-daughter relationships,

Familial relationships where there is severe enmeshment,

Where it's the child's job to give mom a sense of self,

Very dysfunctional.

It can take a lifetime to unravel all of this because it is so layered.

If you grew up in that type of a home and your parents were verbally abusive,

Or they might have been even covert narcissists where the suggestion was very subtle,

You may have taken on traits that were really your mother's traits or your father's traits that had nothing to do with you.

It's important that A,

We recognize if we've come from a dysfunctional home and we have parents who are unhealed,

Narcissistic,

Live in denial,

Intellectualize things.

Why do parents who are dysfunctional intellectualize things?

Because this is the way they get to avoid feeling.

Narcissists have empathy only for themselves.

When you are irritating a narcissist,

They have empathy for themselves.

They are annoyed that you are daring to suggest that they have this negative character flaw and they will rebuke you and they will rebuke the label and do whatever they can to avoid responsibility for projecting onto you.

If you accuse a narcissist of using projective identification,

You can rest assured that they would deny it absolutely and they would go into probably name calling you,

Name calling,

Verbal abuse,

Chastising you,

Blame shifting,

You name it.

If you are not rooted in yourself,

If you are not aware enough to recognize what is happening,

It is very easy to slip below the veil of consciousness and to slip down a rabbit hole where the narcissist has secured a ferocious source of narcissistic supply.

So the goal of projective identification is to somehow offload these negative,

Unconscious,

Uncomfortable,

Negative feelings about the self and get another 3D human being to take on those traits.

It's sort of like taking out the garbage,

You come and you are the cookie monster and the garbage monster and you eat all of this negative stuff that really belongs to and with the narcissist that the narcissist is unable to consciously integrate.

So this is an unconscious attempt to deal with all of the negative feelings that they feel about themselves that they're unable to integrate.

Have you ever noticed narcissists that are able to point out other narcissists,

Right?

So a narcissist says,

Oh,

I don't like that guy and you look and you're like,

Wow,

That's interesting because he reminds me of you or a narcissistic female who is claiming that there's a girl across the room who is a little loose and is looking for attention and you're perceiving this as no,

That's not what I see or maybe this person really is a little bit extroverted,

But just innocently extroverted,

Really not trying to manipulate anyone.

But you'll notice if you know a narcissist and if you hang out with the narcissist long enough,

Narcissists very much dislike people that possess negative qualities that they actually possess.

So it's so easy for a narcissist to see a quality in someone else that they're not able to accept about themselves like manipulation,

Like lying,

Right?

So a narcissist will be able to say,

I don't like that woman because I think she's a liar and you might have no evidence that this woman is a liar or maybe this woman is a liar,

But a narcissist can actually become hung up and really dislike this person and accuse this person,

Project the unconscious flaw about themselves onto other people.

Now when it comes to projective identification,

The target takes it on.

So we can project all day long,

Say,

Oh,

I think that girl talks too much.

That's really a quality that we don't like in ourselves,

But the target isn't affected by it,

Right?

So we project and the target never knows.

With projective identification,

It's a partnered reality.

So in other words,

It's two plus two equals four.

So there has to be someone who's doing the PI or the projective identification.

There has to be a target and there has to be the outcome.

And the outcome is the target actually takes on the flaws that the narcissist or the manipulator has projected onto the target.

So let's say you're married and you are living with someone who calls you a manipulator and you might be struggling with your boundaries.

And if you're highly codependent,

You're doing nothing but trying to make this person happy.

And you start to believe,

Wow,

Maybe I am manipulative.

Maybe she is right.

Maybe I don't really love my kids.

Maybe I don't really care about her.

You start to believe what this narcissistic spouse is projecting upon you.

I've had this happen in my own life where people have come to me and said,

This person is doing X,

Y,

And Z to me and I'm dealing with this person.

And I see the exact opposite.

I see that the person complaining is actually doing what he or she is complaining about to the target.

And the codependent target is trying to deal with all of these accusations and actually believes what the manipulative person is accusing them of.

And it's really difficult when you have friends or family members who are coming to you and they're complaining about their spouse or their child.

And you're just like,

That's not what I see.

Because when it comes to someone who is highly narcissistic,

Their reality trumps everyone else's reality.

And their goal is to bring you into this reality.

And if this expands into an outer circle,

We have a flying monkey situation.

We have the target who has now been targeted by the manipulative person who is being accused of being manipulative,

Who's being accused of not being caring,

Who's being accused of all sorts of horrible things.

And the victim or the target of the narcissist is now wondering,

Am I really this uncaring person?

And then we dial it up when the manipulative person starts calling his friends or his mother or her friends or her mother and so on,

And starts to create this reality that mirrors the fantasy that's inside the narcissistic person's head.

This becomes the fantasy projected onto the target.

The target assumes what the narcissist is accusing them of.

The really unfortunate thing in this situation is that when you have a fractured sense of self,

It is all too easy for you to take this on.

And what happens now,

This becomes a very serious situation.

And I really hope everybody has their spiritual ears on because this is really important.

When you are someone who is seeking approval from other people or as it is in the case with co-dependence,

Co-dependence are other focus.

So co-dependence seek permission to be the self,

Validation to be the self.

They need to be needed.

They have grown up feeling like they are unworthy.

And somewhere below the veil of consciousness,

Neurological pathways tied to negative beliefs that were created in childhood really have them believing that in order to feel worthy,

They have to do something.

They have to be in servitude to other people in order to feel worthy of this person's love.

That's why a relationship with a co-dependent and a narcissist are such the perfect fit.

Because a narcissist is self-focused where a co-dependent is other focused.

And so a co-dependent wants to please the narcissist.

The co-dependent is subconsciously or unconsciously seeking approval from the more narcissistic partner.

It is a natural state of being for a co-dependent,

But it is very unhealthy.

It is soul crushing.

We only have a few decades to live on planet earth and to spend them seeking approval and validation from anyone is a waste of a good life.

It is a waste of a heart.

It is a waste of a breath.

It is a waste of life.

And we have to see in ourselves and recognize in ourselves,

Am I one of those people that seeks other people's validation?

It's critical to know this about yourself.

Now here's part B.

If you are someone who seeks the approval of other people and validation and permission to be,

You might also be someone who has been conditioned and primed and brainwashed to fear a negative outcome.

What do I mean by that?

So if you are a co-dependent that is a seeking approval,

For instance,

Like my mom was,

My mom lived like a little puppy wagging her tail,

Begging for a pat on her beautiful little head from my dad.

And she lived this way until the day she died seeking his approval.

And at the same time,

Although she wasn't aware of it,

My mother had also been conditioned to fear a negative experience.

What I mean by that is that my dad had done enough yelling,

Banging his fist on the table,

Enough stonewalling,

Enough of the silent treatment,

Enough of ignoring everybody,

Huffing and puffing to condition my mother to be afraid of that experience.

And so the goal for my mother was to always be a good co-dependent little girl,

To always be agreeable,

To never give him a hard time,

To make sure that she was anticipating his needs so that she did not experience a negative outcome.

If you think about Pavlovian conditioning,

When we ring a bell and we feed a puppy,

They salivate.

And then do this enough times you ring the bell and the puppy is conditioned and the puppy will anticipate the food and automatically with or without seeing food,

The puppy's mouth begins to salivate.

And so the puppy is being conditioned to think that there is a positive outcome coming when you ring the bell.

Well,

The opposite is true.

When you condition someone to experience a negative outcome,

What they do is they now below the veil of consciousness,

Their mind works to avoid that negative outcome.

And so if you take someone,

For instance,

The adult child of an alcoholic who never had a childhood,

Who was robbed of a childhood,

Who was forced to take care of her siblings because mom and dad were unable to,

Checked out.

You take an adult child of an alcoholic,

The adult child from a narcissistic home,

A child who has suffered from role reversal and who is now responsible for situations far beyond their years.

You have a child that never developed a healthy sense of self before the age of three,

Four,

And five.

By the time a child is three,

They should have an ego.

And by the time a child is four or five,

Super ego.

And if everything was played out the way it was supposed to do,

All of these emotional milestones are met,

Then the child says,

This is who I am.

My name is Johnny.

My name is Kathy.

This is what I like to do.

It's safe to bump into walls.

My mother is going to love me even when I'm not all that cute and pretty and lovable.

My father is going to approve of me even if I drop the ball in the outfield and it's like two outs and it's the end of the ninth inning and I drop the ball and the team at that now runs the bases and wins the game.

Even if I am the child that gets kicked off the cheerleading squad because she can't do a back flip and a split,

My mom and my dad got my back.

Even if I fail at school and they know that I'm trying,

They have my back.

Even if I don't want to be a doctor and I want to be a yoga teacher,

They're going to love me.

Even if they have all of these ideas for me and my future and I decide to be myself,

My parents still have my back.

If you were lucky enough to have that type of a childhood,

Then the who that your brain thinks you are,

The connection from your brain to your heart or your spirit isn't tact.

You are enough.

You know that you're enough and you know that it's safe to be yourself.

You know that it's safe to disappoint people because you're good enough.

Even if you disappoint people,

You're enough.

You're not this little puppy going through life thinking,

I have to seek approval.

I have to seek approval.

I can't make people angry.

I can never make people angry.

I can never make people angry.

Now you take that person,

Which so many of us are,

Although I don't think we always recognize it and you can be a high performer.

You can be a high earner and struggle with this.

How do I know this is a fact?

Because I've coached them.

I've coached people from all walks of life.

So regardless of where you come from,

Regardless of your income,

Regardless of what you do for a living,

I'm telling you as a professional that does this every day,

There are people out there who are considered high performers that have this trouble,

Who have dealt with projective identification,

Who have been in abusive relationships,

Who have been accused of being selfish and manipulative and not caring about anybody else but themselves while they are taking care of everyone while their spouse does literally nada.

It's no bueno.

And this is what happens in life.

So if you grow up feeling invisible,

Then a narcissist who uses projective identification as a means to offload these uncomfortable negative perceptions about self is going to be able to take advantage of you.

And if you don't recognize it,

This can go on for the rest of your life.

And what happens more and more and more and more and more,

You lose your touch with self.

Your identity begins to diminish boundaries are completely blurred and you no longer are in touch with reality,

Nor do you understand any longer who you are.

You lose all idea or all concepts of who and what makes you you.

Another weird aspect of projective identification is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So you have a narcissist that tells you that you're selfish and that you're constantly flirting with other people and you're highly manipulative.

I mean,

Everything that the narcissist is uncomfortable with inside themselves,

That they're not able to integrate,

They start vomiting onto you.

And when you first meet this person,

You fell in love with them.

Obviously there's a love bombing phase and idealization phase,

But there's this honeymoon period and you feel like you've bonded with this person.

You don't yet know what you're dealing with.

So the halo effect is happening,

Like they have love bombed you,

Idealized you.

Maybe you moved in together too quickly,

Whatever the case is,

But you feel like you genuinely care about this person.

And they start berating you about how you don't care about them,

How all you do is abandon them and you're thinking,

I don't feel like I'm abandoning her or I don't feel like I'm abandoning him.

I don't feel like I'm selfish.

And suddenly guess what happens?

The narcissist pushes you so far with all of these accusations,

You feel like maybe I am selfish.

Maybe I am ungrateful.

Maybe I really don't love this person and you leave or you end the relationship or you do end up having a relationship with someone else.

So the narcissist has created this self-fulfilling prophecy.

See,

No one loves me.

See,

No one is trustworthy.

And unfortunately this sometimes happens.

So when people are accusing you of something that they're guilty of,

We have to be really,

Really careful that you are able to separate yourself from someone else's projection and your true reality.

So I like to create these sessions and give people practical tools and steps that they can use to help them avoid these types of trials and tribulations in the future.

Number one,

The most important thing I think is that if you came from a troubled background,

Even if you had a white picket fence and mom and dad were doctors or lawyers and you had piano lessons on the weekend and you were on the swim team and you were on the debate team,

Even if you came from a home that looked perfect,

If you were struggling with this,

If you identify as someone who takes on very easily the accusations,

The projections that other people throw your way,

For instance,

If you're dealing with someone who's accusing you of lying and you know that you don't lie,

You're dealing with someone who you feel is projecting,

Saying that you're a manipulator and you're not a manipulator or someone accuses you of flirting and you're not flirting,

Whatever it is.

If you were someone who tends to struggle in that space,

So versus someone who's like,

That's not me.

That's not what I do.

You have to know if that's you.

If you are someone who is other focused,

Like a codependent,

You need to know that.

So if I was immune compromised,

I need to know that so that I can protect myself when I go out in public.

If you struggle with codependency,

You came from an unhealthy home,

Alcoholism,

Narcissism,

Addiction,

Domestic violence,

Whatever,

You came from that type of a home or even a home where the children were seen and not heard.

So there was no emotional attunement.

You need to know that.

You need to know that you're a target for narcissistic abuse.

Now some narcissists know what they're doing and based on the research that I've read,

Most narcissists don't know that they're narcissists.

And I think that's what makes them so convincing.

They think that they really are right and they think their perception of you is correct.

A narcissist does not see good in other people.

And if they do,

It's for a very short time.

And eventually the mask slips.

So before you know it,

They're projecting all of their negative unresolved issues onto other people.

In my own life,

It was so troubling to realize that my mom never saw any good in me.

It was absolutely uncomfortable to be in the same room with my mom because there were glares.

You could just tell when I talked to her,

She never believed me.

You know,

It was so uncomfortable.

And what did I marry?

I married someone who was her emotional twin.

And it was a woman that I didn't know that much who I was talking to one day that said to me,

He sees no good in you.

And I was like,

Ah,

Eureka,

That's it.

You know,

I married to someone who sees no good in me.

And yet in spite of my ex-husband's flaws,

I did see good in him.

I knew that there was even a better person inside of him underneath all of these things that he did,

His passive aggressiveness,

His accusations,

His inability to trust me and so on.

Right?

I knew that underneath all of that,

There really was a good person,

But I never received that.

And it was amazing to realize that that's it.

So if you're someone who is being berated by someone else,

Meaning like you're not good enough,

There is nothing that you do that's good enough.

You try to buy this person presents,

The presents are never good enough.

You try to be there for this person,

But you're never there enough.

You try to be kind,

But you're never kind enough.

You try to cook them a good meal,

But you really didn't try hard enough.

Right?

So if you're in a situation with someone like this,

You really have to recognize that this is someone who might be projecting all of their unresolved issues onto you.

Maybe they don't trust themselves or maybe they know they're manipulative.

Maybe they aren't as kind as they think they are,

But they're projecting it onto you.

Maybe they know they're not there for anybody else but themselves.

Maybe they know or they think on some level that they're the selfish one and they're projecting it onto you.

But I think the most important thing is that you need to know who you are.

You need to know what your personality traits are.

You need to know how you show up in life and what your personality or relationship style is.

And if you are other focused,

Then you are going to be a target for this type of abuse.

So definitely knowing who you are is key.

The second thing that is critical is to stay self aware.

You have to know what you're feeling and you have to know how other people are affecting your mood.

You have to be able to identify when someone is accusing you of something that you are absolutely not guilty of.

And rather than go into defending yourself or fawning or people pleasing or trying to prove to this other person that you are not what they are accusing you of,

Stay in that space,

Hold onto yourself,

Ask for some time alone and definitely set a boundary.

Number three is set a boundary.

When people are accusing you of things,

Whether you're at work,

Whether it's your mother,

It's your father,

It's your spouse,

It's your boyfriend,

It's your girlfriend,

It's your best friend,

When someone is actually accusing you of something,

I think it's a very important time to say,

I need some time to digest this.

A healthy person is going to take a little bit of time to wonder is what this person is saying about me true or false.

When we are struggling with a lack of self,

All too often we take it on because we've felt unworthy as children.

And so it's not that far off to believe that there is an adult in our life that also sees what our parents saw or is unable to see what our parents never saw,

Which is good.

So it's not goodness.

So it's not hard for our unconscious minds to assume that the adult that we have a relationship with,

Our spouse,

Our sibling,

Whatever,

Is actually correct in their assessment of us.

Then we have parents who have negative perceptions of us and we have taken on these projections from our parents.

We are no good.

We talk too much.

We're drama queens.

We're too sensitive.

And let's face it,

Some of us are highly sensitive and that's a problem.

The goal is the middle line.

The goal is the gray zone.

That might be why gray is one of my favorite colors because black and white thinking is splitting.

It's what a narcissist does.

They love you one minute and they hate you the next minute and it's mind boggling.

And if you're not careful,

You stay on that hamster's wheel of seeking approval and fearing a negative outcome.

So it's like lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my,

This person's angry.

How can I make them happy?

Okay.

How can I keep them happy?

Uh-oh,

I don't want them to be unhappy.

So let me anticipate their needs.

And how do you do that?

You tone yourself down.

And how do you do that?

When you see something that you think you should,

Like you can hear yourself or read a red flag,

Like look at that,

Look at that.

You suppress the red flag,

Right?

But all of a sudden you turn it into a green flag.

Oh,

It's really not a red flag.

That's a green flag,

Right?

And you ignore it.

And there you are.

You're staying on the hamster's wheel.

If you are someone who fears abandonment,

If you are someone who fears being alone,

If toxic loneliness is a problem for you and you spend a lot of time alone and it's difficult for you to make friends,

You have to at least know that you can be a target for projective identification.

Now,

One of the other goals of a narcissist who uses projective identification is to completely make you their source of narcissistic supply.

It is to completely manipulate you into doing everything that the narcissist expects you to do,

Right?

So they isolate you.

They cut you off from friends and family.

They blame shift.

They trauma bond you.

They start arguments and then accuse you of starting the argument and then they threaten to abandon you.

And so it's your fault that the argument started.

It's your fault that they're leaving.

I mean,

It's a complete mess.

And so remember that the most important thing about this situation,

Or I hope what I'm hearing you,

I'm hoping that what you're hearing me say is that you must know who you are.

You must know how you show up in a relationship.

Why?

Because if you don't,

You don't recognize the dangers out there.

You don't recognize that there are wolves out there in sheep's clothing that are going to snuggle up to you,

That are going to tell you that you're a hot little mama.

They're going to tell you that you're beautiful.

They're going to say things to you like,

Does your husband know how lucky he is?

That's one of the lines that someone dropped on me.

It happened,

Right?

And I felt all a flutter because I felt so invisible in my marriage,

But I didn't know that I have this codependency issue going on.

And I didn't know that I was a target for this type of setting you up,

Setting the stage to test the waters,

To see if this woman or this codependent person is actually going to be able to tolerate the abuse and the control that's coming down the pike.

So they butter you up,

A narcissist will flatter you.

They'll butter you up.

They'll see what your weak points are.

You think that you have met someone who really digs you and is attuned to you or with you and wants to learn more about you.

And you don't realize that they are learning you.

You don't realize that they're grooming you.

You don't realize that they're trying to figure out where your pain points are and they're going to exploit your pain points for their future gain.

They'll play the game.

They'll build you up.

Because they know that they're creating a source of narcissistic supply.

When they're building you up and you start fawning all over them and you start idealizing them,

That's their narcissistic supply.

The receptors in their brain are going off,

Like,

Bing,

Bing,

Bing,

Bing,

Bing.

They're feeling it,

Like,

Wow,

She's acting the way I wanted it to,

Or wow,

This guy is talking to me.

He's not talking to his girlfriend anymore.

Wow,

This man's coming to meet me at the restaurant and he's married with three kids.

Wow.

You know?

And so this is a form of narcissistic supply,

Building you up,

Right?

It's part of the idealization phase.

Soon,

What will happen is once you're at a level where they know that they've got you,

They have to start playing a different game.

They can't keep up the compliments because that doesn't excite them anymore.

They've got that.

It's like,

You know,

Game one or part one,

They've completed it.

Now they've got to get to level two.

Now the nitpicking starts.

And if you don't set a boundary and you start acquiescing and you start anticipating their needs,

They don't get upset,

That is you fearing the negative outcome,

Right?

So you're living with someone who started the relationship off great and now suddenly she's complaining about everything.

How you use a fork.

Where you put your sneakers.

How you get out of bed.

How you brush your teeth.

How you make tea.

How you make coffee.

I mean,

The nitpicking is over the top.

It seems unnatural.

It's like,

Where did this come from?

But you're on the hook.

And now it hurts to wiggle when you're on the hook,

Right?

Because now if you say anything,

You challenge this manipulative person and she or he ups the pain.

So now you start getting ridiculed.

So now the projective identification gets layered in where you don't listen.

You don't care.

You only care about yourself,

Right?

Boom.

And if you're not careful,

You end up being a codependent or an emotionally abused person that does everything and anything they can to get back in the good graces of this manipulator or you begin to compliment them or you begin to run around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to figure out how to make this person happy.

You make their favorite dinner.

You stop hanging out with your friends.

You stop going back to school.

Anything and everything that you've heard the narcissist complain about,

You start cutting out of your life because you think that if you do that,

The narcissist will be happy because they have trained you and your childhood may have trained you to seek approval and to fear negative outcomes.

And so be careful out there,

Dear ones,

And remember that a narcissist does not want you to think.

A narcissist does not want you to have friends.

A narcissist does not want you to have space.

A narcissist does not want you to set a boundary.

A narcissist wants you emotionally wound up.

And remember,

Emotions don't run in rational channels.

They just don't.

We have to learn to be more rational about the way that we feel.

So if you feel attacked,

You're being attacked.

If you feel,

Wow,

She's being unfair or wow,

This feels unfair.

Most likely it's because it's true.

So I encourage you to listen to your gut instincts.

I encourage you to learn everything you can about projective identification because it's different than projection.

Projection is I feel this way about you.

Projective identification is I take on how you feel about me.

And if you've ever been the target of a smear campaign where a narcissist just comes at you hard,

They send you nasty emails,

They're talking about you,

They're trying to destroy you,

If you're not careful,

You can actually believe what these people are saying about you.

And that's why it's so important to connect with the true self.

That's why it's so important to love yourself.

That's why it's so important to know who you are so that when people accuse you of stuff that you're not guilty of,

You can say,

Oh no bueno,

Mr.

Or Mrs.

Narcissist.

That ain't right.

That's not me you're talking about.

That's you.

So the worst thing that you can do is be passive in this situation because being passive allows this abuse to continue.

So make sure you are at a minimum stopping the train and you were saying,

You know what?

Things are hot.

You're upset.

Your language is beginning to shift.

I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with these accusations.

I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with the name calling.

I'm starting to feel like this is going down a road I don't want it to.

I need to take a step back.

So you know what?

Maybe tomorrow or the next day or next week or next month,

You and I can revisit this conversation.

You must know that you have to be respected in conversations with other people.

And if you are not,

That's enough to end the conversation.

And then the next thing that you have to learn is to learn to make sure that what people say matches their behavior because there are people out there,

Narcissistic people out there that learn when you are setting a boundary and then their language starts to change.

So they're a little bit more clever about the way they speak to you.

Maybe they start to fawn.

Maybe they start to love bomb you,

But it's all a ploy.

A ploy to get you back into this narcissistic abuse cycle that will go on forever and indefinitely until you say,

I need off this crazy train.